


Arisa's Boppin' Shuffle!

by krizzlybear



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: #ArisasHellBand, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-18 04:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20633258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krizzlybear/pseuds/krizzlybear
Summary: CiRCLE invites Poppin' Party to an upcoming special joint concert called the Girls Band Party: Shuffle Live! The main attraction of the show is the shuffling of all the bands into five new acts that will each write and perform a new song. Arisa, excited to be free of Kasumi and Tae's antics even for just a short period of time, hopes to be grouped up with someone like Yukina or Lisa. But to her dismay, she gets more than what she bargained for.





	1. Shuffle Live! Arisa’s Hell Band?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poppin’ Party is invited to perform in a special live event at Circle! But there’s a catch…

Arisa’s hands trembled as she played the solo at the end of STAR BEAT!. All she wanted to do was wipe the sweat from her face, but she was determined to finish it out without a single mistake. It had been some time since she had played as well as she had, and it became a matter of pride. By the time she concluded, she looked up from her intense concentration and saw the rest of Poppin’ Party staring at her with sly looks on their faces.

“Whoa, Arisa.” Tae said, her mouth slightly agape. “You were in the zone there.”

Before Arisa could even come up with a response, she was nearly knocked over sideways by a drive-by hugging that almost tipped over her keyboard as well.

“Arisa~!” Kasumi grabbed her friend and squeezed as much as she could.

“Get off of me! Argh, you’re going to knock over the instruments again!”

“Oh- My bad!” This was not the first time that Kasumi threatened Arisa’s personal space in the middle of practice, or even in the middle of a performance for that matter. It was business as usual for the band, and even as Rimi and Saya watched, the two of them nodded to each other while holding back their smirks of amusement.

“You know, Arisa,” Saya finally started, “you’ve been really nailing that song lately. It just keeps getting better every time I hear you play.”

Like clockwork, Arisa’s cheeks flushed red, and she started twiddling the volume knobs in front of her and changing instrument settings in an attempt to avoid commenting on Saya’s observation.

“Well, I just wanted to make sure I don’t make a mistake. It’s an important song, that’s all.”

“It really is, isn’t it? It’s the first song we played together as a band.” Rimi beamed, proud of the journey that she and her friends had made ever since that star-filled performance. The rest of the girls took in the same realization and just basked in their nostalgia. Arisa’s solo was that good.

“We’ve been through so much,” Arisa said, “I can only imagine what lies in store for all of us...Wait a second. What are you looking at O-Tae? You’re freaking me out.”

“You’re still sweating.”

Tae did not flinch when Arisa threw the towel at her face. The soft cotton sheet hung on her nose for just a slight moment before it fell onto her guitar and brushed against its strings, ringing out a distorted open chord from the nearby amp. All five of the girls erupted into laughter as the sound gradually died out from the practice room and was replaced by a chime from the room’s PA speaker.

“Poppin’ Party, sorry to bother you, but there is something we’d like to ask you about!” The speaker went silent again, and the girls turned back to each other, nodding in agreement.

CiRCLE always treated PoPiPa with the utmost hospitality. Ever since the band helped them out by throwing a joint concert with a few others, the place had gotten much livelier and saw more business: not only from Poppin’ Party themselves, but from the other bands that participated as well. When the girls came out from inside the practice studio, they were instantly greeted by a familiar staff member.

“Thanks again for taking time out of your schedule to speak with us,” Marina said. “If you’re not busy, we’ll be happy to extend your practice time for free.”

“Really?” Kasumi beamed. “Thanks!” The other girls chimed in with their appreciation.

“Now the reason why I asked all of you out here was, well. Take a look.” Marina handed Arisa a piece of paper with a rough outline for a flyer design.

“CiRCLE presents: Girls Band Party Shuffle Live?” Arisa inspected the paper again, thinking that she may have perhaps missed a detail. She didn’t. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“The management team was thinking about how grateful we are for not only your patronage, but also for all your help with organizing the Girls Band Party from before. So we decided that we wanted to show you our appreciation a year later by organizing another live for all of you to play.”

The group perked up in excitement of possibly playing at CiRCLE again. It had been some time since their last concert.

“I mean, we’ll have to look at our schedules,” Arisa noted, “but I can’t see why not.”

“We have already spoken to the other four bands, and they’re already on board,” Marina said, “but they also agreed to our suggestion to change it up a bit.”

“Huh?” Arisa asked, her head slightly drooping to one side in sheer confusion. Her eyes widened at the sight of a small jar labeled “vocals” with four slips of paper folded up inside. “Wait. What’s this?”

“It’s a special twist that we proposed.” Marina reached into the jar and took out one of the slips at random and showed it to the band. Scribbled on it was the signature of Ran Mitake from Afterglow.

“As you can see, everyone else has already put their name into this and a few other jars. We’re going to draw all of the girls’ names at random and have you form new bands for the joint concert based on the results!”

Kasumi vibrated with sheer excitement. Tae leered suspiciously at another nearby jar labeled ‘guitar.’ Saya held Rimi as if she was a scared kitten. The last bit of glimmer escaped from Arisa’s eyes and she froze.

“Guys, Guys!” Kasumi interjected. “We should do this! Who knows where we’ll end up? I think it’d be cool to play with Aoba-san! Or Eve-chan! No wait! With Kokoron! Ahhhh this is going to be so sparkling and heart-pounding! I can’t wait!”

“Can you just chill out for just a minute, Kasumi?” Arisa looked at the sudden energy welling up from Kasumi, who seemed to have absorbed whatever remained of Arisa’s pep for the day. “Gosh! Fine. We’ll have to talk it over with the others. Is that okay, Marina-san?”

“Take all the time you need. Feel free to think it over while you practice.”

“Oh right. Let’s go.” Out of all the girls, Arisa was the first one back in the room, fiddling again with her keyboard’s sound settings. The others followed suit shortly after.

“A shuffle live, huh?” Saya muttered to herself. “Sounds like a real challenge.” She sat down on her drum stool, her sticks never having left her hands since the end of STAR BEAT!. She stared at them for a brief moment, reflecting on her time with CHiSPA.

“Saya-chan, are you going to be alright?” Rimi asked, trying to avoid her own concerns while attending others’.

“Yeah. I think it’ll be fun. It seems like everyone else is on board, so why not? What do you think, Rimi?”

Rimi stared down at her bass, focusing on the thick E string. “I’m a little nervous, but I think I’ll be alright. It’s because of PoPiPa that I can be courageous when I need to. The other girls are pretty nice, too.”

She felt a slight poke on her side, which caused her to jolt and yelp. Immediately after, she was met with a hug from Kasumi, who still hadn’t gotten her instrument ready. “Don’t miss us too much, Rimirin~!”

A low, distorted riff blared from Tae’s amp. It took a moment for Arisa to recognize the song. Was that Roselia’s LOUDER just then?

“O-Tae!?”

She had barely gotten into the beginning of the hook, but Tae came crashing back down to earth and was met with the confused stares of her bandmates and the feedback from her guitar. Tae laughed weakly.

“It would be a fun challenge to perform with the others.” Tae’s face was struck dead with a shocking realization. “But wait, what if another band tries to play STAR BEAT!? That song belongs to us.”

“That’s your concern!?” Arisa scolded, “Oh well. Looks like O-Tae is good to go.”

“What about you, Arisa?” Rimi asked.

Thinking about Roselia again, Arisa mindlessly switched her piano to a harpsichord setting and started playing the opening notes from BLACK SHOUT. She couldn’t help but let out a silly smirk from hearing the music come from her amp. “I, uh, wouldn’t be against it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

To the girls surprise, Arisa also concurred.

_ It would be fun, _ Arisa thought. _ I wouldn’t have to deal with Kasumi or Tae’s antics. Imagine if I could work with Minato-senpai, or even Hikawa-senpai! _ There was no way she could admit this openly to the others, but the prospect of being away from Kasumi even for just the shortest temporary reprieve, seemed like an opportunity that she couldn’t refuse.

“It’s settled!” Kasumi declared. “Poppin’ Party is going to play at the shuffle live! But first, O-Tae!”

“Huh?”

“Teach me how to play LOUDER, please?”

Tae started playing again, and Kasumi, finally grabbing her Random Star, started copying Tae’s fingering and strums. They worked at it, much to Arisa’s chagrin, and it became clear that there was no getting the band back on track for the remainder of the practice.

Arisa excused herself briefly from the room to tell Marina the news. She couldn’t wait for what was in store.

\---

The day finally came for the five bands to be randomized into their new groups. In the same rehearsal space that Poppin’ Party had practiced the day before, all of the members were convened together and seated in a semicircle in front of a table where Marina and a few other CiRCLE staff prepared to draw names from the jars.

“I was so excited to join that I even wrote my name with even more stars than usual, haha!” Kasumi couldn’t contain herself.

“Why can’t you just keep still?” Arisa lightly elbowed Kasumi in the ribs, trying to get her attention. Kasumi, as if hit in the funny bone, let out a muffled laugh that drew the attention of the members of Pastel*Palettes, who had settled ino their seats to their left.

Still, Arisa wondered, it became a bit of a mystery that Pasupare had been allowed to participate. It seemed like the kind of event that their talent agency would be wary of. If she were going to be matched with any one of them, she’d for sure ask later.

“Without further ado,” Marina started, as she gathered all five tiny jars in front of her. “Here is the first band! Feel free to meet up outside of the room once your names have been called.”

She reached into the jars and pulled out a name from each, and spoke again.

“The first band will be Aya Maruyama on vocals, Moca Aoba on guitar, Lisa Imai on bass, Kanon Matsubara on drums, and Tsugumi Hazawa on piano!”

Moca and Lisa, who were already sitting next to each other, both gave each other a high five as the room erupted into a jumbled murmur with a faint _ fuee _ coming out from the corner somewhere. The five of them eventually stood up and congregated in front of Marina’s table, giving out their information to the staff member for record-keeping. As they shuffled out of the practice room, Marina continued.

“The next band is...”

Arisa could feel a bead forming on her forehead. She pulled out a handkerchief with a green floral design on it, and held onto it just in case. Then she heard Rimi’s name get called.

“Ran Mitake, Sayo Hikawa, Rimi Ushigome, Tomoe Udagawa, and Eve Wakamiya!”

Rimi slowly stood up, as did Saya, who gently patted her back in encouragement. “You can do it, Rimi! Go have fun!”

Rimi smiled. “I’ll try, Saya-chan!”

Rimi wandered over to the front table, where she was greeted by Eve, and the two of them left the room together with Tomoe and Ran trailing them. Sayo stayed behind to ask the staff for more details before eventually heading out as the second group of names were being announced.

“Looks like some of the new groups will have people from the same band.” Arisa pointed out.

“Yeah, maybe we’ll be together again, Arisa!” Kasumi teased.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Arisa hoped that she wouldn’t get paired up with Kasumi. She wanted a break from her antics for once, and as Marina announced the next band, she felt a wave of relief wash over her.

“The third group for the Girls Band Party Shuffle Live will be Kasumi Toyama on guitar/vocals, Tae Hanazono on guitar, Himari Uehara on bass, Maya Yamato on drums, and Misaki Okusawa as the DJ!”

“Yay! O-Tae, we’re guitar pals again!”

Kasumi and Tae bumped their fists and cheered as they got up and bounced towards the front, almost in sync.

“Um, excuse me.” A giant pink bear approached Marina.

“I, Michelle, will be filling in for Misaki for the Shuffle Live~! Hooray! Don’t make a big fuss about it, because Kokoro is over there!”

Marina laughed nervously, “Alright. Michelle it is.”

Arisa suddenly realized that Misaki had already come in as Michelle, and could only imagine the complications she had managed to avoid by not coming in as Misaki. It then dawned on her that there were only two bands left, and there was a 50/50 chance that she would be matched up with Kokoro.

“I mean, I’ve already hung out with Kokoro a few times,” She muttered to herself, “so it couldn’t possibly be that bad, right? And besides, there’s still a chance I end up with Misato-senpai.”

Saya looked over at her friend who was already crossing her fingers and giggled to herself. It was just the two of them now, with a few others in the other groups still waiting to be called on.

“The fourth band will be...” Marina drew one name from the remaining two in each of the jars, then placed them in front of her like she did the others.

“Yukina Minato on vocals.”

Yukina stood up gracefully from her chair, acknowledging her role. Arisa sighed and began to pray as she closed her eyes.

“Kaoru Seta on guitar.”

“Ah! How marvellous!”

By this point, Arisa figured she wasn’t going to get called on until the end of the lineup, but the longer it drew out, the more she began to sweat in her seat. _ Please let it be me. I can handle Kaoru-san if it means getting to play with Minato-senpai and maybe even Saya- _

“Chisato Shirasagi on bass.”

_ Also very good! Please let it be me! _

“Saya Yamabuki on drums.”

Arisa opened her eyes and turned to Saya, who was already standing up with excitement.

_ This was it. For all the marbles. The best possible band situation for me. Please!!! _

Marina reached into the final jar.

“And last but not least, Rinko Shirokane on keyboard!”

Rinko looked up at Yukina and stood. The two of them nodded to each other respectfully as they both headed towards the front table. Saya soon followed.

Arisa sat alone in a daze. It wasn’t the same feeling as getting picked last during gym, since it was obviously a random draw, but she sighed dejectedly knowing that she had the worst luck in the world to be called upon last. And not only that-

“Arisa~!” Kokoro bounced into the chair next to Arisa, who was immediately flanked by Hagumi on the other side.

“Acchan!”

Hina approached the new trio with Ako in tow. “Kokoro-chan!”

Kokoro jumped out of her chair, despite just having sat down a millisecond before. The two of them bounced around in excitement. “Hina!”

“Is this going to be the most boppin’ group ever, or what?”

Ako dramatically held her hand in front of her left eye as she closed the other shut. “I have foreseen the coming doom with my evil eye! The dark lord shall, uh, um, revel! Yes, revel! He will revel in the excitement of our fallen party! Muah ha ha!”

The dark lord loomed over the souls of everyone who remained, but it was Arisa who felt like she had descended into hell itself.


	2. Happy! Boppin’! Smile! Hooray?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arisa gets shuffled into a band with some eccentric members. How will she react...

Outside of Hazawa Coffee, Arisa leaned against a wall next to the main entrance waiting for nobody in particular. Checking her phone, she was about half an hour early for the band’s scheduled meeting, their first meeting at that. That she was able to corral a group like hers to agree on a set time and place to meet, it felt like nothing short of a miracle.

With absolutely nothing to do, and without her bonsai around to keep her entertained, Arisa nonetheless felt anxious, even jittery, about what could happen next, and so she continued pouring through her phone to distract her. Against her better judgment, she scrolled through the recent texts from the band’s group chat, and couldn’t help but mentally point out the differences between this one and Poppin’ Party’s.

For one, having Kokoro in the group was like having two Kasumis. Normally, anything that was sent from Kasumi’s phone often left Arisa with a momentary brain glitch, but Kokoro’s messages were half as long and twice as cryptic. That Hagumi was also in on the chat to back her up was equally unnerving. While Tae always chimed in with equally weird comments in the PoPiPa chat, they were often in a different direction from Kasumi’s, and they seemed to cancel each other out in Arisa’s mind, like wearing headphones that block out white noise. There was a balance to the madness, but the two girls from Hello, Happy World were a lot to handle combined.

Moving on to Hina’s texts, Arisa couldn’t even consider her contributions to the conversation to be at all constructive, though in fairness they weren’t destructive either. They were more side comments about how Hina found the group hilarious or, to Arisa’s dismay, “boppin’”. Now what did that mean exactly? Even after all the time she spent with Poppin’ Party, Arisa still couldn’t precisely define what Kasumi described as sparkling, heart-pounding. It was a feeling, supposedly, and it was something that Arisa for sure felt whenever she was with her usual band, whether it was during a live performance or something as mundane as having lunch in the courtyard at school. She had a bead on it, but Arisa could only sigh at the amount of time it would take to finally understand what boppin’ was.

It took a bit of scrolling around, but it was only in that very moment that Arisa noticed that Ako didn’t text all that much compared to the others. Lost in the sea of wild back and forth ideas were Ako’s sparse comments that started off sounding esoteric but eventually tapered off into what Arisa imagined to be a typical middle-schooler’s voice. Despite it all, Ako was probably the least of her worries.

_ Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to show up this early _ , Arisa thought. She locked her screen, her fireworks wallpaper popping up for the briefest moment before dissolving to an empty black display. There was no way anyone would show up at this very moment, save for perhaps Hagumi, who lived nearby.

_ Oh no, what if Hagumi is the first one to show up? Then we’ll be forced to talk. What would we even talk about? _

No matter who Arisa talked to, there was always at least someone from Poppin’ Party to act as a buffer. Even when she went to the beach this past summer with other girls from outside the band, she at least had Tae to keep things familiar. But to handle a new group of girls alone? That was a new challenge and Arisa could only face it head-on. She put her phone away, steeling herself with determination. She psyched herself up in the most appropriately Arisa way that she could, mumbling words of encouragement to herself and gradually losing track of her surroundings.

“Oh, it’s Arisa-senpai. Heyo!”

Arisa fumbled out of her trance, taken completely aback by Ako appearing out of nowhere.

“A-Ako-san! I was just, uh, m-meditating! That’s all!”

Meditating? That was completely uncool. Ako was her only chance at having an edge in the band dynamic. Perhaps if she stepped into the role of band leader, then it could make handling the other members and keeping them in check. Having Ako on board was of the utmost important, and Arisa thought she ruined her chances by mentioning meditation.  _ Uncool _ .

“Huh? I don’t get it, but sure. Hey, where are the others?”

Ako wasn’t wearing her go-to everyday gothic ensemble, but instead opted for the black Girls Band Party T-shirt from the last time everyone performed together.

“We’re both early, it looks like.” Arisa could already feel the awkwardness bubble up from her feet up to her chest. “Say, Ako...san. Let’s go inside. You must be freezing in that shirt.”

“Oh-ho!” Ako grinned playfully. “So you noticed my shirt? It was from when we last played together at CiRCLE, isn’t it cool?”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go inside.”

Arisa looked around inside as she led the two of them into the coffee shop. Aside from a pair of patrons sitting on the far end of the cafe and two baristas who she could not identify, it seemed that they were alone for the most part. Ako helped herself to a table for four while Arisa borrowed a fifth chair from another table, in advance of the meeting.

As soon as the two of them settled into their chairs, Ako let out a pretty lengthy yawn as she stretched her arms out over the table, almost like a cat.

“You seem, uh, tired.” Arisa inwardly chided herself again for the boring small-talk.

“Oh yeah? Hehe.” Now that she was found out, Ako let herself relax at the table, resting her head on the knuckles of her hands.

“I was up all night playing NFO with Rinrin. Oh, NFO! That’s Neo Fantasy Online. It’s an MMORPG, an online game that you play on the computer. I’m a necromancer and Rinrin is a wizard. We play all the time together, but only when I’m done my homework and if there isn’t any band practice with Roselia...”

She went on, and somehow that was enough to get going, and Arisa didn’t mind letting Ako go on about her video game. At first she tried to understand the minutiae of Neo Fantasy Online, like the different classes and abilities, but once Ako went off the deep end and started talking about one-off quests and NPC lore, Arisa couldn’t keep up. All she could do was smile and nod politely, hoping that it would suffice.

“You know, if you wanted to play, I could show you around, Arisa-senpai~!”

“Uh wha-? I mean, I suppose I could, hahaha~”

Arisa didn’t fancy herself a gamer. At all. But what could she say at that moment that wouldn’t completely disappoint Ako and lose her interest?

“Really? Give me your e-mail and I’ll send you a referral link so you can get a free trial account, and I can get a referral reward! Yeah!”

Ako seemed more interested in the reward than in Arisa’s eagerness to play Neo Fantasy Online, but between the two of them, neither were willing to admit it. Once again, Arisa took out her phone and handed it to Ako after unlocking it. “Here. You can do what you need to do.”

“You won’t regret it! You know, when Yukina first played, she picked the bard class and it was really funny because she didn’t know how to use the chat...”

Somehow, during the middle of yet another rambling about NFO, Ako managed to whiz through a number of websites on her phone and sent a decently chunked referral link to Arisa’s account.  _ Incredible,  _ she thought,  _ she was able to compose a detailed message while maintaining a separate conversation! _

“You’re...you’re pretty good at typing, aren’t you, Ako?”

It took a single instance of saying her name without the -san to really capture Ako’s interest and affection, as she replied with her eyes widened. “Yep! I’m on voice chat with Rinrin, so I don’t need to type that much, but it’s useful when I have to message the rest of Roselia. Check it out!”

Ako opened the Roselia group text on her phone and slid it over to Arisa. It was a chunky thing, Ako’s phone, though most of the heft was from the case itself: thick, black, and with bat wings sprouting from the back. Remembering how messy kids often were in middle school, Arisa wondered if Ako washed her hands prior to using her phone as often as she did, though from what she gathered from Ako’s ramblings, it seemed that she cared enough about video games that she took good care of her computer as well as her phone.

They continued talking, and the fact that Arisa was able to keep Ako in a single stream of thought regarding video games was a blessing to both of them. For Arisa in particular, it was a hopeful sign that she would be able to handle the rest of them.

It felt like no time at all until the remaining three members joined.

“Heya~!” Kokoro declared as she was the first to burst through the door to the cafe, with Hagumi and Hina trailing just behind her. The other two laughed giddily together; what they were laughing about, Arisa dreaded to ask and find out.

“We were coming up with a bunch of ideas for the new song!” Hagumi declared. “I was listening to Kokoron and Hina-chan go back and forth with ideas and it was amazing! It was like nothing I’ve heard before from Hello, Happy World!”

“Oh?” Arisa asked, curious. “What do you have so far?”

Kokoro and Hina grinned at each other. “Well,”

And the two just started humming, nonsensical yet in complete sync with each other. Every La-la-la was complemented with an equally unquantifiable boppin sound effect.

“Oh wow!” Ako responded, suddenly filled with energy. “What if, when you go lalala, I could go, badump-wha-bam!” She drumrolled her fingers in the empty space in front of her, as if she were thrashing at her set.

“Ooh! That’s amazing, Ako! That’s sure to bring smiles to people’s faces!”

“You’re so funny Ako, your air drumming is so interesting!” Hina slapped the table as she trailed off into a fit of laughter that spread throughout the group, save for Arisa.

In just an instant, it all just slipped away from her, and Arisa had to reel them in. That was the game plan, right? Try to be the leader, for once, nip everything in the bud and try to make as much sense out of everything as possible.

“Okay, but what does lalala mean anyways? I’m going to need to write all of this down, hopefully.”

“It’s not so much lalala than it is La-la-la~!” Kokoro corrected.

“With a badump-wha-bam!”

“And I can come in with my bass, all boom-badoom!”

“Yeah!”

_ Oh no _ . It was too late. Arisa already lost them. She was woefully ill-prepared to translate anything anyone said. She eyed the notebook in her tote bag, but opted not to take it out, since there was absolutely no use. Whiteness drained away from her eyes.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” a barista interrupted, appearing in front of the bustling table, “but if you could please lower your voice a bit, it would be greatly appreciated.”

“O-oh,” Arisa said, flushed, “of course. My apologies!” She bowed regretfully. She barely even said anything during the entire exchange, but she felt the most responsible for the conversation veering the way it did.

The barista bowed back in appreciation and took the opportunity to take everyone’s orders. It was the perfect reprieve from the sudden spike in energy, and the right opportunity for Arisa to finally take out her notebook. She wasn’t going to give up, and she wasn’t going to leave completely dumbstruck and empty-handed.

“Well? I guess we have...whatever melody this is, but do we know what our song is going to be about?”

The girls all curiously stared at each other, taking turns focusing on each of the different members. This was perhaps the first time Arisa, and perhaps everyone else, actually took stock of who was in the band and what their image was.

“Okay...how about this, instead: do we want to take turns talking about ourselves or what we would like to do in this band?”

Arisa turned to Kokoro.

“Oh, me? Well...” It was a calculated move, but it made sense to Arisa. Kokoro was the singer, and therefore she was most likely to give off the image of the band based on how she was normally seen in Hello, Happy World!. Arisa already had an image in her head, but just in case, it didn’t hurt to get caught up with Kokoro’s adventures.

“...looking at everyone here, it’s pretty obvious to me that this is a band that wants to have fun! I think if we put on a lively performance, we can put a lot of smiles on people’s faces!”

Bingo. As expected of Kokoro.

“Yeah, this entire thing seems like a fun idea,” Hagumi chimed in, naturally, “so that’s what I want to do too. I want to play bass and have fun!”

“I want to have fun too,” Ako added, “but I want the song to be really cool too, you know? Something that I can play and then when my older sister hears it, she’ll be super amazed at how cool everyone is!”

Interesting. Arisa jotted down everyone’s thoughts, including Ako’s. Having talked to Ako the most recently out of everyone in the group, the cool factor stood out a bit to Arisa, though she wondered what it meant for something to be cool. To her, bonsai were cool.  _ Needs clarification _ , she wrote.

“And?” She turned to Hina next. “How about you? And don’t say boppin’, because I don’t know what that means.”

Hina giggled, “You’re too hilarious, Arisa-chan!” She settled herself a bit and really thought about it. “Hmm... I can’t really explain it, but I guess anything is fine with me. It has to be interesting at least, but with everyone here I know it’s going to be interesting no matter what!”

“You’re too trusting of this group, Hina-senpai.” Arisa put her pen down. “And besides, I don’t know too much about you anyways, so I think it’s important that everyone’s personalities come out in this song.”

“Then what about you?” Hina responded, straightforward and serious. “What do you want to do?”

The million dollar question. Arisa knew that she would eventually have to come up with her own input on this. But with everything that she planned on doing with the group, her strategy to keep everyone focused and in check, she realized that she didn’t know where she fit in all of this.

And that’s what probably scared her the most about it all.


End file.
